Dave Barry Is Not Making This Up

by Dave Barry

  But the question is: Why are Paper Mate pens showing up in this toilet? There’s only one logical explanation—I’m sure you thought of it—alien beings. David Garza’s toilet is apparently connected to some kind of intergalactic sewage warp, through which aliens are trying to establish communication by sending Paper Mate pens (which are for sale everywhere). Probably they want us to write down our phone number on a piece of Charmin and flush it back to them.

  Speaking of toilets and communication, you need to know about a TV-review column from the Daily Yomiuru, an English-language newspaper published in Japan. The column, sent in by alert reader Chris Graillat, states that there’s a children’s TV show in Japan called “Ugo Ugo Ruga,” which features—I am still not making this up—an animated character with heavy eyebrows called Dr. Purl Purl (Dr. Stinky), a piece of talking excrement that keeps popping up from the toilet bowl to express strange platitudes only an adult can fathom.

  You’re thinking: “Hey! Sounds like Henry Kissinger!”

  No, seriously, you’re thinking that there are indeed some scary worldwide developments occurring in toilets, and the international authorities had better do something about it. And then they’d better wash their hands.

  It’s A Gas

  Recently, I received a letter from a justice of the United States Supreme Court concerning a product called Beano.

  I absolutely swear I am not making this up. The letter, written on official U.S. Supreme Court stationary, comes from Justice John Paul Stevens, who states:

  “Having long been concerned about the problem of exploding cows, it seemed imperative to pass on to you the enclosed advertisement, the importance of which I am sure will be immediately apparent to you.” Justice Stevens enclosed an advertisement from Cooking Light magazine for Beano, which, according to the manufacturer, “prevents the gas from beans.” The advertisement includes pro-Beano quotations from various recognized intestinal-gas authorities, including (I am still not making this up) the New York Times, the Idaho Statesman, and Regis Philbin. The advertisement calls Beano “a scientific and social breakthrough,” and states: “It’s time to spill the Beano.”

  I was already aware of this product. I don’t wish to toot my own horn, so to speak, but thanks to the efforts of hundreds of alert readers, my office happens to be the World Clearinghouse for information relating to gas buildups that cause explosions in animals, plants, plumbing, humans, etc. In recent months I’ve received newspaper reports of explosions involving a flounder, a marshmallow, a mattress, two wine bottles, several pacemakers (during cremation), countless toilets, a flaming cocktail called a “harbor light,” chicken livers, snail eggs, a turkey, a tube of Poppin’ Fresh biscuits, a raccoon, and a set of breast implants.

  So needless to say, many readers had already alerted me about Beano. Several of them had sent me actual samples of Beano, which comes in a small plastic bottle, from which you squirt drops onto your food. But until I got Justice Stevens’s letter, I had not realized that this was a matter of concern in the highest levels of government. When you see the Supreme Court justices, they always appear to be extremely solemn, if not actually deceased. It never occurs to you that, under those robes, they have digestive systems, too. But they do, as can be seen by a careful reading of the transcript of a recent court hearing:

  CHIEF JUSTICE REHNQUIST: Is the court to understand, then, that the counsel’s interpretation of the statute is ... All right! Who sliced the Limburger? (He glares at the other justices.)

  JUSTICE SCALIA: Well, I am not naming names, but I happened to be glancing at the liberal wing of the court, and I definitely saw some robes billow, if you catch my drift.

  JUSTICE BLACKMUN: Oh, sure, and I suppose the conservative wing doesn’t sound like the All-Star Kazoo Band over there. My opinions are blowing off the bench.

  JUSTICE O’CONNOR: Oh, yeah? Well, why don’t you take your opinions and ...

  This is bad for America. We need our highest judicial body to stop this childish bickering and get back to debating the kinds of weighty constitutional issues that have absorbed the court in recent years, such as whether a city can legally force an exotic dancer to cover her entire nipple, or just the part that pokes out.

  So I decided, as a tax-deductible public service, to do a Beano Field Test. To make sure the test was legally valid, I asked a friend of mine, Paul Levine, who’s a trained attorney as well as an author, if he’d participate. Paul is a selfless, concerned citizen, so I was not surprised at his answer.

  “Only if you mention that my critically acclaimed novel To Speak for the Dead is now available in paperback,” he said.

  “I’m afraid I can’t do that,” I said. But Paul agreed to participate in the Field Test anyway, because that is the kind of American he is. My wife, Beth, also agreed to participate, although I want to stress that, being a woman, she has never, ever, in her entire life, not once, produced any kind of gaseous digestive byproduct, and when she does she blames it on the dogs.

  To make this the most demanding field test possible, we went to a Mexican restaurant. Mexican restaurants slip high-octane beans into virtually everything they serve, including breath mints. It is not by mere chance that most of Mexico is located outdoors.

  Paul, Beth, and I applied the Beano to our food as directed—three to eight drops per serving—and we ate it. For the rest of the evening we wandered around to various night spots, awaiting developments. Other people at these night spots were probably having exciting, romantic conversations, but ours went like this:

  ME: So! How’s everyone doing? BETH: All quiet! PAUL: Not a snap, crackle, or pop!

  Anyway, the bottom line is that Beano seems to work pretty well. Paul reported the next day that all had been fairly calm, although at 3:30 A.m. he was awakened by an outburst. “You’re familiar with the Uzi?” was how he put it. I myself was far safer than usual to light a match around, and Beth reported that the dogs had been un usually quiet.

  So this could be an important product. Maybe, when you go to a restaurant, if you order certain foods, the waiter should bring Beano to your table, instead of those stupid utility-pole-sized pepper grinders. “Care for some Beano?” the waiter could say. “Trust me, you’ll need it.”

  And getting back to Justice Stevens’s original concern, I think federal helicopters should spray massive quantities of Beano on the nation’s dairy farms, to reduce the cow methane output. And of course it should be mandatory in the dining rooms of the United States Congress. I’m sure the Supreme Court will back me up on this.

  The Unkindest Cut Of All

  I want to warn you right away that today’s topic involves an extremely mature subject matter that might offend your community standards, if your community has any.

  I became sensitive about community standards recently when, at the suggestion of no less than a U.S. Supreme Court Justice, I wrote a column about a ground-breaking antiflatulence product called Beano. Some newspapers—and I do not wish to name names, but two of them were the Portland Oregonian and the St. Louis Post-Dispatch—refused to print this column on the grounds that it was tasteless and offensive. Which of course it was, although it was nothing like the disgusting trash you hear from the Senate Judiciary Committee.

  Anyway, those readers who have community standards should leave the room at this time, because today’s topic is: circumcision. This is a common medical procedure that involves—and here, in the interest of tastefulness, I am going to use code names—taking hold of a guy’s Oregonian and snipping his Post-Dispatch right off. This is usually done to tiny guy babies who don’t have a clue as to what is about to happen. One minute a baby is lying happily in his little bed, looking at the world and thinking what babies think (basically, “Huh?”), and suddenly along comes a large person and snip WAAAAHHH the baby is dramatically introduced to the concept that powerful strangers can fill his life with pain for no apparent reason. This is excellent training for dealing with the Internal Revenue Service, but it’s no fu
n at the time.

  Most of us guys deal with this unpleasant experience by eventually erasing it from our conscious minds, the way we do with algebra. But some guys never get over it. I base this statement on a San Jose Mercury News article, written by Michael Oricchio and mailed to me by many alert readers, concerning a group of men in California who are very upset about having been circumcised as babies. They have formed a support group called RECAP. In the interest of good taste I will not tell you what the P in RECAP stands for, but the “RECA” part stands for “Recover A.”

  According to the article, the members (sorry!) of RECAP are devoted to restoring themselves to precircumcision condition “through stretching existing skin or by surgery.” I swear I am not making this up. Here is a quotation from RECAP co-founder R. Wayne Griffiths:

  “There are a lot of men who are enraged that they were violated without their consent and they want to do something about it. I’ve always been fascinated by intact men. I just thought it looked nicer. I had friends growing up who were intact. I thought, ‘Gee, that’s what I’d like to be.’”

  The article states that, to become intact again, Griffiths invented a 7-1/2-ounce skin-stretching device that “looks like a tiny steel barbell,” which he taped to the end of his Oregonian and wore for “four to 12 hours every day, except weekends, for a year.” Using this method, he grew himself an entirely new Post-Dispatch. Other RECAP members are involved in similar efforts. They meet regularly to discuss technique and review their progress.

  I’m not sure how I feel about all this. I’m a middle-age white guy, which means I’m constantly reminded that my particular group is responsible for the oppression of every known minority PLUS most wars PLUS government corruption PLUS pollution of the environment, not to mention that it was middle-age white guys who killed Bambi’s mom. So I’m pleased to learn that I myself am an oppressed victim of something. But no matter how hard I try, I can’t get enraged about it. I’ve asked other guys about this.

  “Are you enraged about being circumcised?” I say.

  “What?” they say.

  So I explain about RECAP.

  “WHAT??” they say.

  I have yet to find a guy who’s enraged. And nobody I talked to was interested in miniature barbells, let alone surgery. Most guys don’t even like to talk about medical procedures involving the Oregonian region. One time my wife and I were at a restaurant with two other couples, and one of the women, Susan, started describing her husband Bob’s vasectomy, which she had witnessed.

  “NO!” we guys shouted, curling our bodies up like boiled shrimp. “Let’s not talk about that!”

  But our wives were fascinated. They egged Susan on, and she went into great detail, forcing us guys to stick wads of French bread in our ears and duck our heads under the table. Periodically, we’d come up to see if the coast was clear, but Susan would be saying, “And then the doctor picked up this thing that looked like a big crochet needle ...” And BONK we guys would bang our heads together ducking back under the table.

  So Post-Dispatchwise, I think I’m going to remain an oppressed victim. But don’t let me tell the rest of you guys what to think; it’s your decision. This is a free country. In most communities.

  Tarts Afire

  The thing I like best about being a journalist, aside from being able to clip my toenails while working, is that sometimes, through hard work and perseverance and opening my mail, I come across a story that can really help you, the consumer, gain a better understanding of how you can be killed by breakfast snack food.

  This is just such a time. I have received, from alert reader Richard Rilke, an alarming article from the New Philadelphia (Ohio) Times headlined: OVERHEATED POPTARTS CAUSE DOVER HOUSE FIRE, OFFICIALS SAY. The article states that fire officials investigating a house fire in Dover, Ohio, concluded that “when the toaster failed to eject the Pop-Tarts, they caught fire and set the kitchen ablaze.”

  According to the article, the investigators reached this conclusion after experimenting with Pop-Tarts and a toaster. They found that “strawberry Pop-Tarts, when left in a toaster that doesn’t pop up, will send flames ‘like a blowtorch’ up to three feet high.”

  Like most Americans, I have long had a keen scientific interest in combustible breakfast foods, so I called up the Dover Fire Department and spoke to investigator Don Dunfee. He told me that he and some other investigators bought a used toaster, rigged it so it wouldn’t pop up, put in some Kellogg’s strawberry Pop-Tarts, then observed the results.

  “At five minutes and 55 seconds,” he said, “we had flames shooting out the top. I mean large flames. We also tried it with an off-brand tart. That one broke into flames in like 3-1/2 minutes, but it wasn’t near as impressive as the Kellogg’s Pop-Tart.”

  A quality you will find in top investigative journalists such as Woodward and Bernstein and myself is that before we publish a sensational story, we make every effort to verify the facts, unless this would be boring. So after speaking with Dunfee I proceeded to my local K-mart, where I consulted with an employee in the appliance sector.

  ME: What kind of toaster do you recommend for outdoor use? EMPLOYEE: A cheap toaster.

  I got one for $8.96. I already had Kellogg’s strawberry Pop-Tarts at home, because these are one of the three major food groups that my son eats, the other two being (1) pizza and (2) pizza with pepperoni.

  Having assembled the equipment, I was ready to conduct the experiment.

  WARNING: DO NOT ATTEMPT THE FOLLOWING EXPERIMENT YOURSELF. THIS IS A DANGEROUS EXPERIMENT CONDUCTED BY A TRAINED HUMOR COLUMNIST UNDER CAREFULLY CONTROLLED CONDITIONS, NAMELY, HIS WIFE WAS NOT HOME.

  I conducted the experiment on a Saturday night. Assisting me was my neighbor, Steele Reeder, who is a Customs broker, which I believe is a mentally stressful occupation, because when I mentioned the experiment to Steele he became very excited, ran home, and came back wearing (this is true) a bright yellow rubber rain suit, an enormous steel hat, and a rope around his waist holding a fire extinguisher on each hip, gun-slinger-style. He also carried a first-aid kit containing, among other things, the largest tube of Preparation H that I have ever seen.

  Also on hand was Steele’s wife, Babette, who pointed out that we had become pathetic old people, inasmuch as our Saturday Night Action now consisted of hoping to see a toaster fire.

  Using an extension cord, we set the toaster up a safe distance away from the house. I then inserted two Kellogg’s strawberry Pop-Tarts (“With Smucker’s Real Fruit”) and Steele, wearing thick gloves, held the toaster lever down so it couldn’t pop up. After about two minutes the toaster started to make a desperate rattling sound, which is how toasters in the wild signal to the rest of the herd that they are in distress. A minute later the Pop-Tarts started smoking, and at 5 minutes and 50 seconds, scary flames began shooting up 20 to 30 inches out of both toaster slots. It was a dramatic moment, very similar to the one that occurred in the New Mexico desert nearly 50 years ago, when the awe-struck atomic scientists of the Manhattan Project witnessed the massive blast that erupted from their first crude experimental snack pastry.

  We unplugged the extension cord, extinguished the blaze, and determined that the toaster’s career as a professional small appliance was over. It was time to draw conclusions. The obvious one involves missile defense. As you are aware, President Clinton has decided to cut way back on Star Wars research, so that there will be more money available for pressing domestic needs, such as creating jobs and keeping airport runways clear for urgent presidential grooming. But by using currently available electronic and baking technology, we could build giant toasters and place them around the U.S., then load them with enormous Pop-Tarts. When we detected incoming missiles, we’d simply hold the toaster levers down via some method (possibly involving Tom and Roseanne Arnold) and within a few minutes WHOOM the country would be surrounded by a protective wall of flames, and the missiles would either burn up or get knocked off course and detonate harmlessly in some p
lace like New Jersey.

  Anyway, that’s what I think we should do, and if you think the same thing, then you have inhaled too many Smucker’s fumes.

  Insect Aside

  Recently, I had to pay several hundred dollars to get my car started, and do you want to know why? Nature, that’s why. It’s getting out of control.

  Now before I get a lot of angry mail on recycled paper, let me stress that, generally, I’m in favor of nature. I’m even in favor of scary nature, such as snakes, because I know that snakes play a vital role in the ecosystem (specifically, the role of Boonga the Demon Creature).

  But nature should stay in its proper context. For example, the proper context for snakes is Asia. A snake should not be in your yard unless it has your written permission. A snake should definitely not be climbing your trees, although this is exactly what one was doing outside my window a few days ago. I looked out and there it was, going straight up the trunk, looking casual, Mr. Cool-Blooded. It was impressive. I’m always amazed that snakes can move on the ground, without arms or legs. You try lying on your stomach and moving forward merely by writhing. My friend Buzz Burger and I did this for an hour at the MacPhersons’ 1977 New Year’s Eve party and never got out of the kitchen.

  Nevertheless I was alarmed to see the snake, because according to top snake scientists, there’s only one known scientific reason why a snake would go up a tree, namely, so it can leap onto your head and strangle you.

  This particular snake had been watching me for several days. I’d seen it on the lawn earlier when I was out with my two dogs, Earnest and Zippy, who were trotting in front, looking alert and vigilant, providing protection. The snake was holding very still, which is a ploy that a snake will use to fool the observer into thinking that it’s a harmless object, such as a garden hose or a snake made out of rubber. This ploy is effective only if the observer has the IQ of a breath mint, so it worked perfectly on my dogs, who vigilantly trotted right past the snake. Earnest actually stepped over part of the snake.